In recent years, research and development of regenerative medicine for artificially producing target tissues or organs through cell culture are underway. A cell culture facility that meets predetermined criteria, for example, a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice), is used to perform a culture operation of cells.
In the related art, an open-type culture container such as a dish or flask has been used to culture induced pluripotent stem cells (hereinafter referred to as iPS cells) or embryonic stem cells (hereinafter referred to as ES cells). A liquid such as a cell suspension, a culture media or the like is introduced into the container, or a liquid or a cell is recovered from the container, by pipetting which is carried out with the hand of a man. In the culture of iPS cells, ES cells or the like, it is necessary to carry out the culture by forming a colony having a predetermined size. The colony which has grown larger by the culture is subcultured by crushing a cell clump into an appropriate size by virtue of pipetting. However, in the open-type culture container, an internal space of the container communicates with an ambient air at the time of opening a lid. Thus, there is a risk that the container is contaminated by a bacteria or a virus introduced from the outside.
There is known a closed-type culture container which can compensate the defects of the open-type culture container (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,479,252 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-11747). In the closed-type culture container, there is provided an access port that permits access from the outside to the internal space of the container. A syringe is inserted into the access port at the time of injection or discharge of a liquid. This reduces a risk of contamination from the outside.